Opposition to coal-fired power plants has increased in recent years. Opponents of power plants that rely on burning coal to produce electricity argue that the process emits large amounts of CO2 emissions and other air pollutants, which leads to global warming. However, there are other negative affects that result from coal-fired power plants other than the emission of CO2 and other air pollutants. For instance, the coal that powers these types of generating plants has to be extracted from the Earth and has to be transported to the power plants. In my paper I will start with a discussion about the environmental impacts of Peabody Coal Company's strip mining activities on Black Mesa, which provided coal to the Mohave Generating Station in Nevada. Next, I will discuss coal-burning power plants that utilize a process called integrated gasification combine cycle (IGCC), and nuclear-powered generating stations as possible alternatives to traditional coal-fired power plants. I will finish by stating possible solutions and recommendations.
The history of Black Mesa and the coal that is buried within it began on December 16, 1882. In response to an increase of Mormon communities being established in the Four Corners area, President Chester A. Arthur issued an executive order that removed close to "4,000 acres of land in northern Arizona from the public domain" (Clarke, 2009). This land was designated as a reservation for the Hopi Indians and any other Indians that the President decided to settle there. At the time that this reservation was established, the government suspected that there were large coal deposits beneath this land. Following geological surveys conducted in 1909, those suspicions turned out to be well founded when it was discovered that the largest coal deposits in the U.S. lay below the surface of Black Mesa. According to President Arthur's course of action, he "removed the lands of the Hopi from the public domain and granted them to a people with little interest in industrial development or large-scale mineral resource extraction" (Clarke, 2009). When the time came to extract coal from these lands, he believed that "the Indians could easily be moved aside" (Clarke, 2009).
The population of the Navajo people increased throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and more Navajos began to settle on the same land that had been set aside by President Arthur. According to the executive order that was signed by President Arthur, "the reservation was for the use of the Moqui (Hopi) Indians and other Indians that the President should decide to settle thereon" (Clarke, 2009), and therefore the Hopi were unable to put a halt to the increasingly large number of Navajos settling on these lands. According to author Chris Clarke, "it was the energy industry that went into Hopiland, deliberately exacerbated the tensions, and committed fraud against the Hopi and genocide against the Diné (Navajo)" (Clarke, 2009).
In 1951, the Bureau of Indian Affairs appointed a Mormon bishop and lawyer, John Boyden, to represent the Hopi tribe as its land claims attorney. In 1951 the Hopi tribe had no tribal council and no central government in which to legally establish land lease agreements with coal companies. Boyden was able to "persuade a group of Hopi Mormon converts that the income from coal leases would be of immense benefit to the tribe" (Clarke, 2009). As a result, this group was recognized by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as the official government representing the Hopi tribe. Norman Littell was John Boyden's associate, working with the Diné as their BLM-designated land claims attorney. Littell was successful in persuading the Navajo Tribal Council into signing a contract that would grant him ten percent of all profits earned by the tribe as a result of coal mining leases.
In 1966, both the Navajo and Hopi tribes entered into leases with Peabody Coal, which allowed the company to begin extracting coal "on 64,000 acres of land in the Black Mesa area" (Clarke, 2009). John Boyden played an integral part in negotiating the mining leases between Peabody and the Hopi and Diné tribes which "awarded the Hopi far less in royalties that the market would have suggested" (Clarke, 2009). The Hopi filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent mining activities on Black Mesa, arguing that strip mining violated both Hopi and Navajo traditional religious beliefs. However, US courts dismissed the lawsuit and in 1970, mining activities commenced at the Black Mesa and Kayenta mines.
Beginning in 1971, coal that had been extracted from the Black Mesa mine was being used to generate electricity at the Mohave Generating Station. The extracted coal was transported to the Mohave Generating Station through a slurry line. The transport process consisted of pumping groundwater "from the Navajo Aquifer - or N-Aquifer - at the rate of 3.3 million gallons a day. The coal, ground into small chunks, was mixed with water and pumped through an 18-inch pipe, 273 miles to Laughlin" (Clarke, 2009). When this slurry mix of groundwater and coal reached its destination, the coal was separated from the slurry mixture and burned in order to generate electricity at the generating station. The coal from the Black Mesa mine was burned at a rate of nearly 16,000 tons a day. In addition, coal from the Kayenta mine was transported to the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona by conveyor belt and train.
The effects of pumping millions of gallons of Navajo Aquifer groundwater began to affect the ecosystem in the Black Mesa area. According to Chris Clarke, "the N-Aquifer is the sole source of drinking water for the Hopi, and for Diné in the west half of their Reservation. With Peabody Coal pumping a billion gallons a year for their slurry line, traditional Hopi springs began to shrink, and one by one, wells dried up. Deprived of groundwater, wild vegetation began to weather" (Clarke, 2009). As Peabody's mining activities continued, more and more groundwater was being pumped from the N-Aquifer at the rate of 3.3 million gallons a day and an increasing number of natural springs began to recede or dry up altogether. Additionally, "as it dug deeper into Black Mesa, Peabody found it was mining coal of lower quality. The coal needed to be washed to be usable, requiring more water from the N-Aquifer" (Clarke, 2009). In 2002, both the Hopi and Navajo Tribal Councils approved declarations which ordered Peabody Coal to stop using N-Aquifer groundwater to transport coal via the slurry line by December 2005.
In 2004, Peabody formally requested the BLM's Office of Surface Mining to renew its mining permits and to combine the Black Mesa and Kayenta mines. Peabody's proposal "would have increased the rate of mining by 20 percent, and authorized the use of additional N-Aquifer water to wash the lower-quality coal in a new on-site facility" (Clarke, 2009).
The Mohave Generating Station operated with practically no emissions controls during the first thirty years of its existence and on average, emitted "40,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 10,000 tons of smoke and soot into the air" (Clarke, 2009), which often extended to the Grand Canyon and Four Corners regions. These statistics made Mohave Generating Station "one of the largest single sources of airborne sulfur dioxide in the West" (Clarke, 2009). Other air pollutants that were released in to the atmosphere from the Mohave Generating Station included, nearly "20,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, 2,000 tons of particulate matter per year, and just under ten million tons of CO2" (Clarke, 2009). In 1998, several environmental groups, including the Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club, and the National Parks and Conservation Association, took legal action against the owners of the Mohave Generating Station, claiming they consistently violated emissions laws and regulations. In 1999, a settlement was reached whereby the operators of the generating station would install pollution control devices by January 2006. In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advised that both units at the Mohave Generating Station have the required pollution control devices installed by April 2006.
For six years, Southern California Edison (SCE), the owners and operators of the Mohave Generating Station, did nothing; no action was taken to install the required pollution control devices. The operating partners of Mohave were not willing to invest $1.1 billion to install the devices without a reliable source of inexpensive coal. SCE was pressuring Peabody to increase its production at Black Mesa, which would have increased use of N-Aquifer groundwater by one-third. Peabody believed that this request would prove to be infeasible and that alternative sources of water to transport the coal via the slurry line would not be operational by the December 31, 2005 deadline imposed by the Navajo and Hopi Tribal Councils. In December 2005, an agreement to extend the deadline was not reached and SCE and its partners decided that closing the Mohave Generating Station was their best option. As a result of the closing of the Mohave Generating Station, the Black Mesa mine ceased operations, as Mohave was the sole consumer of the coal extracted from the mine. With the closing of the Black Mesa mine, about 240 jobs were lost; "well-paying jobs in an area with 40 percent unemployment" (Clarke, 2009). On the positive side, the N-Aquifer can slowly replenish, natural springs may be preserved, and juniper woodlands on the Hopi and Navajo reservations may be able to be restored.
Plans are being made to construct coal gasification plants on the Hopi and Navajo reservations which would be able to generate "theoretically cleaner-burning carbon monoxide and hydrogen from coal supplied by Peabody" (Clarke, 2009). One such plant is the Desert Rock Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant that will utilize a process known as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) which emits lower levels of carbon dioxide, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants known to be harmful to the environment. Another selling point of the Desert Rock Power Plant is that it will provide about 1,000 construction jobs over four years, 400 permanent operating jobs with an average salary of $60,000 per year, and other taxes to the Navajo Nation and its citizens.
The IGCC process "integrates two different technologies: coal gasification from the chemical industry and combined-cycle power generation from the power industry. IGCC power plants can use synthetic gas (syngas) derived from a variety of sources such as coal, pet coke, and bio-mass as their fuel" (Neville, 2009). According to the article IGCC Update: Are We There Yet?, IGCC plants have several advantages over conventional coal-burning power plants that utilize pulverized coal. According to Steve Jenkins, vice-president of gasification services at CH2M Hill Inc., an international consulting, engineering, construction, and operations firm, IGCC uses less water (approximately 33% less) for cooling purposes, compared to a similar-size pulverized coal plant because "about two-thirds of the power generated in an IGCC plant is from the gas turbines and one-third is from a steam turbine-generator, which requires cooling water" (Neville, 2009). Another advantage of IGCC plants is the creation of usable by-products. According to Neville, "when using high-temperature gasification technologies, the ash in the feedstock is removed in the form of a glassy, non-leachable slag that can be used in the manufacture of cement or roofing shingles, or as asphalt filler or aggregate" (Neville, 2009). Finally, IGCC plants have an advantage in carbon capture over pulverized coal power plants. "The technology required for pre-combustion CO2 capture has already been used successfully on coal gasification (but not IGCC) technology" (Neville, 2009), and enhancements are being made to increase performance in the IGCC process.
According to David J. Stopek, an engineer with Sargent &Lundy, a Chicago-based consulting firm, "IGCC is still an evolving technology compared to the level of commercial status of conventional PC [pulverized coal] technology" (Neville, 2009). The limited construction of IGCC plants has resulted in higher costs for each proposed IGCC plant that requires extensive engineering and development. Steve Jenkins has pointed out a number of other challenges that IGCC developers face that include: appeals by environmental advocacy groups that make it difficult for projects to proceed; cost issues that some public utility commissions have been hesitant to approve; and since there are only two coal-based IGCC plants currently operating in the U.S., "IGCC technology suppliers do not have an extensive database of experience to work with, as they do for PC plants" (Neville, 2009).
In 2008, the governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley, supported plans to construct a new nuclear power plant in the vicinity of two existing plants in the Chesapeake Bay area. Governor O'Malley stated "given what massive new burning of coal will do to the planet if we don't develop better and cleaner technology, including safer and cleaner nuclear, which is what is…planned and talked about in terms of the third reactor" (Sharpe, 2008). Among the effects resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels is harm to the world's climate, threatening species and island nations, and contributing to "the spread of diseases such as malaria into" (Sharpe, 2008) areas which were previously unreceptive to the carrier mosquito. Coal mining has led to the destruction of landscapes, and endangered communities whose homes and buildings face the threat of sinkholes caused by mine subsidence. However, nuclear power also comes with risks and consequences. Among these risks are "the disproportionate health risks associated with uranium extraction, processing, enrichment, waste storage, and nuclear accidents, not to mention repurposing for weapons" (Sharpe, 2008).
The Price-Anderson Act passed by Congress in 1957 covers private operators in case a nuclear accident occurs. However, the act "limits a nuclear utility's liability to $10 billion, with the remainder of the liability borne by U.S. taxpayers" (Sharpe, 2008). In 2004, Public Citizen, a national nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, "'estimated that the $10.5 billion provided by private insurance and nuclear reactor operators represents less than two percent of the $560 billion in potential costs of a major nuclear accident" (Sharpe, 2008). The federal government accepted responsibility, under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, for disposing spent nuclear fuel, with electric utility users and taxpayers funding the waste storage plan. According to author Virginia Sharpe, "One of the reasons the federal government has assumed a large share of the risks associated with nuclear energy is its military incentives, both to ensure a continuing supply of nuclear material for weaponry and to ensure that disposed material is safely out of the reach of terrorists and others who would use it against the United States" (Sharpe, 2008). However, the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada sits on geologic faults and has faced opposition from the Western Shoshone Indian tribe and the state of Nevada and has not begun to receive nuclear waste storage.
Virginia Sharpe states, "When nuclear power is touted as a 'clean' form of energy, proponents are generally referring to the fact that it produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuel. Belied by this rosy description are the enormous and documented ecological and human risks and harms associated with extraction, processing, enrichment, waste storage, and nuclear accidents, as well as with uranium's potential use in weapons production" (Sharpe, 2008).
Currently, opposition is strong opposing the construction of any new coal-fired power plants due to the enormous amounts of air pollutants emitted on a daily basis. Many existing coal-fired power plants have been required to install pollution controls that have cost owners and operators millions of dollars. In some cases, such as the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada, owners have decided that shutting down their plants is more cost effective than investing millions of dollars to install the mandated pollution controls. New technologies, such as integrated gas combined cycle (IGCC), hope to lower the emission of air pollutants and toxicants that are released during the burning of coal that powers the turbines used in the generation of electricity. However, as stated earlier, IGCC is still a new technology that faces a number of challenges. The lack of research and existing IGCC power plants has led to limited studies and statistics that would prove helpful in obtaining approval to begin construction. Nuclear power also faces strong opposition, mainly due to the handling and storage of the waste that is produced by spent fuel. In addition, possible fears of a major nuclear accident also stimulate the opposition to nuclear power plants.
Upon completion of my research, I have come to the conclusion that integrated gas combined cycle technology is still very new and requires more research. There are only a few operating IGCC power plants in the world, which has led to inadequate research and statistics. As for nuclear power, there exists strong opposition to the locations of nuclear waste storage sites and the transporting of nuclear waste. Residents of many states oppose nuclear waste storage sites near their communities. In addition, the extraction, processing, and enrichment of uranium, the primary source of fuel for nuclear power plants, pose serious health risks. Persuading the Navajo people to accept the construction of a nuclear power plant would be an impossible feat to achieve, considering their history involving uranium mining. "Between 1944 and 1986, close to four million tons of uranium was mined on the Navajo homeland in the Four Corners region of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona" (Sharpe, 2008). EPA estimates that about 520 abandoned radioactive mine and mill sites currently exist on the Navajo reservation. These abandoned mines have resulted in "uranium dust [that] has been inhaled, ingested, and unknowingly mixed with clay to build structures in the Navajo nation - with radium levels registering 270 times the EPA standard" (Sharpe, 2008). My recommendation, for the Navajo Nation and for all nations and countries around the world, is to invest in more renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, bio-mass, and hydrogen. These renewable energy sources are more cost effective, due to their dependence on naturally occurring resources, and are more environmental friendly.
